13. Another new start?

Key points

• Even the UK’s own International Development Ministers says Britain is “no longer a development superpower” and that closing DFID was “at a stroke destroying a key aspect of global Britain.”?British international development policy needs another new start, just as radical as the new start in 1997 which I described in article 2.
• It is well known that the UK needs to restore DFID, 0.7% and the focus on ending global poverty. ?DFID 2.0 should be properly planned, but announced soon. We should grow from 0.5% to 0.7% in a straight line over 2-3 years and stop spending ODA at home.
• Many other things matter too.?The most important of which is radically reform the approach of all donors – including the UK – to back the priorities of communities and leaders in the countries they are supporting, and not impose “our solutions” on them. ?This means core costs for civil society and budget support for governments.

The FCDO’s new (May 2022) International Development Strategy is not the new start we need. ?But it is within the Government’s powers to make a new start in the next 12 months, especially following the appointment of Andrew Mitchell as Minister of State for international Development.?And the Labour Party is currently planning and consulting on what UK international development policy would look like if they win a general election in 2024.

So what could be the future of UK leadership on international development and eliminating world poverty??The sudden drop in UK leadership on official development assistance in chart 7 is a visual representation of a wider stepping back in the last two years. ?If this recent trend is not rapidly reversed, there is a huge risk that a two-year dip becomes a decade long decline which could take at least as long to reverse. ?So this really does feel like a moment of choice.?

What are the big changes required?

·????????Support people and leaders’ decisions in low-income countries

·????????Refocus aid on poverty

·????????Reopen DFID

·????????Restore 0.7%

·????????Reduce inequality in vaccines, gender discrimination and more

·????????Prevent humanitarian emergencies, conflicts, and climate catastrophe ?

·????????Improve free, fair trade

Support, don't tell

As I have described in other articles, eliminating world poverty is not primarily down to what the UK government does. ?It depends much more on what people and governments in low-income countries do themselves.?The question for the UK is therefore whether the UK will support their leadership??And whether our goal is to eliminate world poverty or to use ODA only when it furthers short-term UK interests.?It is always in the UK’s long-term interests to reduce global inequality. ?

The UK government and UK charities make much faster progress on supporting the decisions of communities and governments in lower income countries, as I described in article 4 on new democracies.?The UK government should ensure that its own ODA and those organisations it funds, make real progress on localisation and the Grand Bargain commitments. ?And use this leadership to press other donors to do so as well, as the UK could in 2005, 2011 and 2012 when it showed leadership at Gleneagles and the pledging conferences for vaccines and contraception. ??

Best of all would be to see UK and other donors start to provide direct budget support to democratic and transitioning countries again.?The new FCDO International Development Strategy looks worryingly like a step in the wrong direction on this.?We will see what the true priorities of the FCDO are when we see the distribution of further aid cuts in 2023. ?

End poverty

The UK should refocus policy on eliminating extreme poverty.?It should re-discover the UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development.?Achieving these should be the key metric of UK international development strategy.?The world can still meet these goals, despite Covid and the current inflation crisis, if it decides to do so.

0.7%

The UK must abide by its legal, moral and political commitments to the 0.7% GNI ODA target which was passed by a huge majority in parliament in 2015.?It must undo the 30% cut in official development assistance. ??This is the most visible example of the change in UK government policy on global poverty since 2020. ?The government said in 2020 the cut was temporary and would be reversed when specific fiscal criteria are fulfilled. ?This government has now said that won’t be the case until at least 2028!

However, a different government in 2024 could reverse the aid cuts sooner.?It would not have to jump back to 0.7% in one go.?A new government in 2024 could increase ODA gradually (and in a straight line) to 0.7% over a typical three-year Spending Round. This would show intent immediately but allow for a much better planned growth than the rushed cuts implemented by Raab in 2021.?

In his new Cabinet, Sunak promoted International Development to a Minister of State attending Cabinet, Andrew Mitchell.?But what we really need is a Secretary of State and a Department for International Development, in the same way there is a separate Department for International Trade and a separate Ministry of Defence.?The Labour Party has committed to do so – although the details are still be considered.?I would like to see all parties make that commitment.?But I would not implement such a commitment as suddenly as the Prime Minister abolished DFID.?It was a massive distraction for DFID and FCO staff in the middle of the Covid pandemic. That’s not over and now there’s Afghanistan, Ukraine and a hunger crisis in East Africa on top. So, as Moazzam Malik has said about our former colleagues, “FCDO’s people desperately need stability after the two toughest years of their professional lives.” ?I agree.?At the same time, abolishing DFID has been a mistake with real costs. So there will be major benefits in restoring DFID. The FCDO should immediately cease further steps to complete the merger and instead develop a sensible plan to re-establish DFID over a reasonable – not too quick but definitely not too slow – timeframe.?

Equality

The persistent global inequity in Covid vaccines access (see chart 11 below) is very worrying given the ongoing risks of outbreaks in countries with very low vaccination rates. ?The UK should have done more during its 2021 G7 Presidency. But it can still do more now and encourage others to do better. Fully implementing the WTO waiver on Covid vaccine patents should be done immediately.??

FCDO promised to prioritise reversing the UK ODA cuts affecting women and girls. CARE has welcomed this commitment. ?But CARE’s research with Development Initiates shows that the FCDO’s current promise to reverse ￡780M in cuts is only 41% of the ￡1.9Bn cut from gender equality programmes in 2021 by Dominic Raab. ?It will be a major test of Andrew Mitchell’s priorities, to see if he protects women and girls in the further cuts he makes in 2023.?

Prevention is better than cure

FCDO promised a UK Humanitarian budget of ￡1Bn a year. ?This is a 33% cut compared to 2019 despite global humanitarian needs doubling since 2019, as shown in article 11 on Disasters.?A 33% cut is insufficient to respond to Ukraine, the food crisis, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and so many other emergencies. This shows why we need to return to 0.7% urgently and increase the humanitarian budget. ??

At the same time we must do more to prevent humanitarian need. This means faster progress to reduce carbon emissions and more diplomatic focus on preventing and resolving conflicts. This is what UK diplomats should be doing, multilaterally, with other countries, not learning how to manage the ODA budget.?

Policy matters as much as money

As I have said through this article, it is not all about financial assistance.?There are several important policy steps the FCDO can take even quicker than re-opening DFID and they should.?

The war in Ukraine shone a new light on money laundering in the UK but it's not just about Russian oligarchs.?The government should ensure that the vigour on Russian sanctions is also applied to money laundering by government officials, gangsters and corrupt businessmen from all countries. ?The UK has a particular responsibility to do so, given that - as the FT says - London is one of the money laundering capitals of the world.

The UK has copied the EU Everything But Arms (see article 12) trade agreements with Least Developed Countries.?But the UK government promised that Brexit means it can do better trade deals with low-income countries than the EU.?We have not seen any yet.?Let’s see that.?

What can I do?

Given how important UK government leadership on International Development has been, and what a difference it makes, as I hope I have demonstrated in this series, one of the most important things that individuals, companies and charities can do is keep up the positive pressure on the Government and parliament to restore UK leadership on eliminating world poverty. ?But that’s not the only thing.??

Whatever the government decides to do, there is a huge role for people, charities and companies to work together to ensure that people in low-income countries can earn a living wage in a dignified job.??More and more companies are trying to ensure that their operations are Environmentally and Socially responsible and accountable. ?They are doing so because they can see it’s the right thing to do, it makes good business sense, and because their own staff, customers and charities are all asking them to do it.?

I hope and believe that the last two years will prove to be a bad blip in the UK’s long-standing leadership on global values.?All of us have a role to play if we want to make sure that turns out to be true.?

The path to zero poverty

Whether Africa will lift at least 500 million people out of extreme poverty by 2030 to achieve zero global extreme poverty, also remains to be seen.?It depends solely on the decisions which people in power make and the organisation of everyone else to make them do so. ?There is nothing inevitable about extreme poverty.?It is totally unnecessary.?The world is richer than it’s ever been. ?We have made huge progress in eliminating world poverty in the last 25 years.?We must finish the job.?

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